SAM ZAJAC COLUMN: Rink size does not matter

SAM ZAJAC COLUMN: Rink size does not matter

THE defeat on Sunday to Peterborough Phantoms was a difficult one to take because we had a good win away at Hull Pirates on the Saturday, which I thought was probably the best 60 minutes of hockey we have put together all season.

I don’t think we played particularly poorly at home to Peterborough, penalties meant there were a couple of five-on-three situations, which we had to kill.

Individual mistakes also led to a few goals and that can be tough to come back from, so maybe we set ourselves up to fail there.

Peterborough are a good team, but now we are going to look over the video and look at the next game, which is Basingstoke Bison.

That is the only game we have this weekend so it means we can just look at one team, instead of having two teams in quick succession, so that should help with our preparation. We know they’ll play a similar way to Peterborough.They will be well drilled so we know what to expect from them and I actually played for them for one year in 2009.

It’s a tough place to play. It is a bit of a hostile environment but we are all experienced, we have all played there before so it shouldn’t be a problem.

Generally, the different rinks don’t make too much of a difference for us, it’s the same ice for both teams.

We are all big men and we know how to approach the game, I don’t really mind what type of rink we play in.

The smaller ones are normally more physical and the bigger ones suit the skating sides but we have both of those types of player here at the Swindon Wildcats.

However, there is a big mix because there is no standard size rink in this country so after years of playing, you just get used to it and adapt as you go along.

In this country, you’d class that as normal but in Europe you tend to see bigger, Olympic size rinks.

In North America, there are quite small variations, but again, we aren’t spoiled for choice with the rinks that we have here.

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